Support our members - support our branches

Moving backwards through today's NEC meeting helps me to question the logic of the arrangement of the agenda which I am inverting...



At the tail end of Dave Prentis' General Secretary's Report (of which more soon)(or not so soon) I asked some questions prompted by information from some London Borough branches.



I asked about the perceived tardiness of legal advice to branches facing significant challenges. I was advised that this was the first our General Secretary had heard of such a problem and that further details would elicit a further response. I will pursue this.



I also advocated our writing to members resident in the area of any local authority attacking our members, urging them to lobby Councillors against such attacks. I was advised that we do use this tactic but that its expense means that we employ it sparingly.



I concur with the views of the London Branch Secretary who felt that we should look at how to moderate the cost to the national union of this sensible tactic - by, for example, branch funds paying the postage and branch activists stuffing the envelopes.



As you will see when I get back to the beginning of the meeting, we have a single priority as a Union, which is to confront the ConDem cuts and their consequences, building alliances in our communities. To do this our branches need prompt and effective support from Regional and National level.

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